I’m okay

I’m still here. I haven’t taken a long walk on a short pier, although it might have sounded like I was about to in my last post. Thank you for all the positive and supportive comments that you left for me. I really appreciate it and it was definitely encouraging. From around Tuesday afternoon I’ve started feeling better. I haven’t wanted to cry or kill anybody (including myself). I am struggling to sleep at the moment and I feel very tired and it is getting me down a bit, but I am not in nearly as much emotional turmoil as I was over the long weekend. I really was a mess, but I feel much better now 🙂

Potty training is back on track. I feel less despondent about it, but maybe I should rather blog about that when I have had to handle it by myself for an entire weekend. It’s easy to talk when I have a small window in the evenings to deal with. Yesterday Babyice made his very first poo in the potty! We were so excited! The day mother caught him at just the right moment and put him on. I’ll have to keep a close eye on him and see if I can catch him in time. I went to buy him a small plastic potty because he was refusing to sit on the toilet. I also bought a new toilet seat ring that fits under the toilet seat. I think he may have been afraid of the toilet because the seat that fits into the big toilet seat has a tendency to move around while he is trying to get on and I am sure it made him nervous. The new toilet seat ring (what is that thing called?!) is red as is his new potty. He seemed eager to try the new things out after we let him play with them on the way home and for the first time since the long weekend he peed at home in the toilet and the potty and his underpants. I have implemented a “reward chart” and much positive reinforcement. Every time he goes potty now he gets a high five, some clapping and excitement. I think the excitement might have waned very soon previously (perhaps because I was having a small breakdown). Also, each time he goes to the potty he gets to stick a smiley face sticker on his chart on the back of his bedroom door, accompanied by another high five. I think once he makes a poo in the potty I’ll give him “special stickers” (bigger/different stickers). We’ve requested that the day mother does not put a nappy on him when he comes home, but lets him go on the potty just before we leave. We don’t want him to associate nappies with being at home. For now I plan to use nappies only if we are going out and for night time. Last night I had removed Babyice’s underpants and shorts and wandered off to run his bath and when I returned he had turned around a large red toy that has a hole in the middle, straddled it and was trying to pee in the hole. I had to laugh. Luckily he had just been on the potty and didn’t manage to pee, but he certainly has the right idea!